His
by The Sky Pirate Girl
Summary: "You should have been mine. You were supposed to be mine, had the world been a fairer place." Reuload. Written during and after the first season. Character studies: David Nolan and Mary Margaret, Mr. Gold and Belle, Regina Mills, Prince James, Emma Swan and Henry Mills.


_I._

Live.

The princess demands from him, hitting at his chest.

_Live._

The voice pulls him from the darkness, dragging him away from memories of a life filled with happily-ever-afters and sorrowful never-befores.

Fitting, she would hit him in the end, just like she had done the first time they met.

_Live!_

She kisses him and it's not the end, and he wakes up, coughing water and shrugging away death's grip on him.

In a half-daze, not seeing the strange buildings that should have been the enchanted trees of the Forest, he had come to the Troll Bridge to see her and there she was, her fiery green eyes demanding that they live happily right now.

But the wind chases away his memories and brings the truth of a false reality with it.

_II._

Later, he is told he has a wife who - upon seeing him - embraces him as though she wants to merge their two bodies into one and suffocate him, but this woman feels to him as though he has never touched her (she crushes him into a role that should never have been his).

Her skin does not at all feel familiar, unlike that other woman's - Mary Margaret Blanchard, Blanchard... Blanche...

_III._

"You should have been mine," he whispers before he leaves, the night she doesn't go to his welcome party. "You were supposed to be mine, had the world been a fairer place."

And those words haunt her to the day she is told by that vigorous woman who feels to her like both a family member and an enemy that her John Doe has left his wife.

_IV._

He asks her to wait for him by the Toll Bridge and she goes. She waits for him for a lot longer than she should have, but she is so happy and the moon is burning so bright and she feels as though Henry - that beautiful, wonderful boy - is right and they really are meant to be and happy endings really do exist and the man who is getting late really is her Charming and -

Instead flowers and an apology for making her wait, he brings with him a regretful smile and memories of Kathryn Nolan. She smiles still, and thinks he doesn't need to see her broken heart.

They had not even kissed, after all, save for that time she awoke him from death.

_"It was true love's kiss, Miss Blanchard! You awoke him with the True Love's Kiss!"_

Fitting, she did not get him in the end, she thinks with resignation. Who would ever love her, the plain and too good for her own good teacher who carries herself like a child, wearing her heart on her sleeve?

_V._

Later, when the man who had never noticed her, not even on their own date, comes and decides that she'd do for the night, she agrees to go with him - too weak and too broken to remain without at least the false comfort of uncaring hands.

And as she withers beneath him, she imagines it's another man (she fantasizes him as a shepherd with the heart of a prince, the eyes of the sky, the smile of the sun and a voice that reminds her of a place she has never really been to but felt nostalgic for anyways).

And his words haunt her still, echoing in her mind like he is at the top of the world.

_"You should have been mine."_ Just... like... this...

The doctor who cannot heal her presses a passionate, lingering kiss on her lips, as though he claims her as his, as though he has conquered the naive, prudish, innocent Miss Blanchard and she is but a mere trophy that would gather dust in some forgotten shelf.

_"You were supposed to be mine."_

She feels her heart cry, but she is far too proud to let her eyes do the same. And certainly not in front of this stranger in her bed who thinks he is far more important to her than he actually is.

_VI._

Even further into the night, as she plays with the ring on her finger, nor really knowing its true story_ (of a mother who regarded her son, and saw how her other one had grown up without her; of an elderly woman who told a prince that this ring would lead him to his true love; of a raid in the woods, of a love story that never really could have happened, and yet it did, because the child born from it is crying in the other bedroom, mirroring its mother's destiny)._

She is already his - mind and soul - and her heart whispers to her that the princess-thief and the shepherd-prince would find their way to each other, and not even a thousand curses, or a hundred bitter witches, or a million false memories would stop them.

They'd spiral into the world of sin, if it need be, and they'd drown in the promise of freedom, bask in the fruits of the forbidden tree. Until all curses are broken, all distances - overcome, and all is as it should be once more.

But Miss Blanchard rolls the ring on her finger still, and pays no attention to the matters of her (his) heart.

_VII._

When Mr. Gold finally sees his true love (that, by all means, ought not to even exist anymore), he is flabbergasted. He is happy.

And he doesn't expect her reaction.

She slaps him and tears away from his arms.

"I should have known that you wouldn't want me," he tells her bitterly, rubbing his face.

Belle turns to him and the emotions in her eyes freeze him.

"Stop being so self-centered, you stupid man! Because you know what? I loved you! '_Once upon a time'..._" she adds bitterly, as an afterthought.

"_She_ told me you were dead..." he whispers.

Belle looks at him in surprise.

"And do you know how many things _she_ told _me_?" she counters, and a tear falls from her eye. She rubs it away hurriedly, as if brushing away a fly. "And I never believed her, not even once!" Mr. Gold wants nothing more than to squash his traitorous heart and thus relinquish the pain of her words-draggers.

"And you know what is the saddest?" Belle continues. "For the longest time, I had believed that _true love_ would save me," she spits the feeling that had turned his life into one big mush of chaos, like it is something bitter that will leave a bad after-taste in her mouth. "But then I realized that it wouldn't. _True love_ didn't get me out of Regina's claws. _I_ did. _I_ saved myself. You had been right in your original believes about that damned feeling. I curse the day I foolishly thought I could change you, Rumpelstiltskin!"

_VIII._

Because he had not wanted to be changed.

Because if you love someone truly, deeply - you wouldn't want to change them. Even if you sense how much they need to be changed, deep down in their rotting heart.

"It shouldn't have been like this, Belle," Rumpels - _Mr. Gold_ murmurs after an impossibly long moment of silence. "We should have been happy."

The look she gives him pierces him to the spot.

"We _would_ have been happy, Rumple, we _would_ have. If you had only _just believed_... we would have been great..."

"I don't understand..." she cracks a laugh and it comes out ugly and raw from years of disuse.

"How would you? If you had _understood_, we wouldn't be speaking like this. _In this world.._.

"I had been _yours_, truly yours - completely _yours_ to love. If you had only just _understood_! If you had only chosen _me_, we would have been happy, Rumpelstiltskin - and not lived miserably away from each other! Because that's how _true love _works. Cruelly, mind you. Once you've seen it, you end up miserable without it."

He reaches out for her hand and when she shrugs him away he can't help thinking how unfair it all is.

For the first time in his life Mr. Gold is on the bad end of a deal.

As if Belle hears his thought, she looks at him sadly and says:

"It is hardly _fair_, wouldn't you agree? Knowing what would have been, if things had been done differently."

"Yes," he agrees, holding his broken, bleeding heart in hand. "Belle, if I could change it all, if I could fix everything- believe me, I _would_." It is the one thing he can say at the moment.

"But you _can't_. You can't fix _me_. True love can't heal everything." He senses she wishes it could have, though.

"And how would you know? Have you ever tried?" Her eyes darken with a memory they both share and he belatedly realizes his mistake.

"I _have_. And you know what else I have tried? I've tried counting on you. To save me like a 'damsel in distress'. But how would you know that? Were you tortured by your own father's servants, in their insane attempt to cleanse your soul from a love that broke you anyway? Were you sold like a dog to the woman who ruined your live? Did you live in a dungeon for _thirty_ years, crying your eyes out for a true love that never, _ever_ came?

"I give up, Rumpelstiltskin. I give up on love. I renounce it. Live your life and deal your deals. I don't care anymore." Belle finishes, her voice breaking on each word as she turns her back to him .

_IX._

In time, Mr. Gold would try to win her over. In time, he would even succeed (and not because it's true love and he'd save her from a tower, so that they could live happily ever after, not because they are incomplete without each other - but because they _care,_ they love, and they _will be_) .

But right now Belle French exits the pawnshop and leaves him broken from regret and sorrowful _would have been's._

_X._

Thinking about what could have been is the worst possible thing.

Because, especially in her case, 'happily ever after' had been so damn close, she had tasted it.

_"I lost someone once too."_

Once she had thought of happiness as something that would have been reached in just a day.

_"But the love I lost, there's no way of bringing him back."_

She had been almost-happy, in those stolen moments and half-glances that made her days. And she had already been planning her wedding with _him,_ who mattered. _Him_, who was the only person in the world that mattered.

_XI._

She had wedded, like she had dreamed days and nights.

She had saved a little girl's life and, thanks to that she had _finally_ wedded. She had had the beautiful wedding she had always wanted, she had worn the dress of her dreams. She had had many people who admired and envied her.

But she was forced to become a king's bride, and not a stable boy's.

And _that_, that was _cruel_.

_"Life with a stable boy is a far cry from a life as a queen."_

_Indeed_, it was.

_XII._

In this _world_ of _wonderful fairy-tales_, you get the chance to fall in love _once_.

No second chances.

_He's not coming back._

And she did not know how she was supposed to ever find happiness in the cold halls of the king's palace, where all she ever ached for were the arms of someone long gone as cold as them.

_XIII._

...And no one _ever_ had thought of her as a child, as a girl, as someone who once had a pure, naive heart.

No one _ever_ had thought of her as anything but the Evil Queen she had not wished to be.

No one but _him_. Him, who had shown her that there was a serene island in the middle of the gales of the sea.

_XIV._

It wasn't only the man she lost, of course.

It was the peace of the evenings, after long rides to places promising adventures. It was the belief that the world was fair and the people had at least a seed of light in their hearts. That not everyone was selfish. It was her own innocence and her own dreams and hopes and believes.

It was the quiet midnights when the lovers' full moon shone so brightly and that light brought her joy; when she could - under the constant thrill of sneaking away from her mother - freely converse with the only one in the world who could truly understand her believes and her sorrows, and what made her _tick_, and who she really was. An innocent, scared girl who was trying to be brave and had only one wish - to escape with the man next to her, to another world or another village (it had not mattered) and give birth to many sons and one precious daughter.

Stupid, foolish, silly dreams really. But it was her dreams. His dreams. Their dream.

In this world, where everyone around her was getting their happily ever afters, while hers was eternally denied, how was she supposed to be good, when it was precisely goodness that had cost her everything?

_XV._

_"I __**want**__ to be with Daniel."_

If wishes were horses...

_"__**Mother**__! No! I loved him!"_

...beggarswould ride.

And she now has the amazing opportunity, unlike many others, to pinpoint the _exact_ moment when her horses had been slaughtered, all at once, leaving her only with rage and bitterness and need for bloody vengeance.

Because Cora had not destroyed only Daniel's heart that day.

_(She later deprives people of their hearts and lets them live - because, why die, when they could suffer like she had?)_

_XVI._

_"An eye for an eye." _

Her curse is really the same one that Snow had gifted her, in essence.

Regina had wanted a wedding and she had had it.

Storybrook's citizens were granted their wishes similarly.

- Snow White had wanted to take care for a child and guide it through life and little Miss Mary Margaret, the teacher, did it in her place.

-James had wanted to see his daughter grow up, even though he knew he never would be able to. But he did, in his dreams, when he was in coma for twenty eight years.

...And so on and so on.

And the little part of her heart she had forced to live that day, the little part of her heart that sustained on her need for revenge, was happy. She did her job as a mayor, lived her life as a mother and a lover and a friend. Minded her own business, and everyone else's too.

And if, whenever she saw a couple - God forbid if it was David and Mary - and she felt dead and _empty_ and betrayed, she paid no attention to those feelings.

_XVII._

_"Remembrance of things past?"_

No one cared of the Girl-Who-Was-Forced-To-Become-A-Queen's side of the story.

And why should they?

All everyone cared about was that she was a soulless, _heartless_ being that needed to be destroyed in order for them all to have their _fairly _deserved happy endings.

Including her own son.

Never mind that she loved him the best possible way a woman so broken could.

Never mind that she had cared for him for _ten_ years, somehow managing not to always choke at the thought that he could have been hers and Daniel's.

_XVIII._

_"I love her."_

And yes, what hurts the most in the end, is the knowledge that _he_ loved her.

That they could have been married and had many sons and a daughter and lived their lives, as free as the wind.

That they could have been truly happy.

Instead, he was buried in a world that she had destroyed, that didn't exist anymore (and he didn't exist anymore- neither his ghost, nor his grave).

Instead she was cursed more than anyone else.

Because...

_XIX._

_"What does your empty heart know of __**love**__, Regina?"_

_XX._

For someone so bend on pushing people away, Emma has (quite unwillingly, thank you very much) given her heart away too many times.

Adoptive families, all that jazz - it was only to be expected. But after too many disappointments from pretty lies and Disney's brain-washings of a promised happily-ever-after, she toughened herself. She build a resistance, a wall, a no-nonsense attitude, simply because it was the only way she could preserve herself.

But then came Henry's father with all his dark charismatic enigma and his messed up past and she had thought she had finally found a brethren, someone just like her. Henry's father was a warrior at heart, he was braver than most of the men, stronger than them too. Yet she appeared to have awoken some of the little tenderness left in his heart (God knew he had awoken hers).

She trusted him, idolized him even. Maybe even drew inspiration from his character for hers. Because with her 'superpowers' she could tell that he never lied when he told her that he returned the feelings.

_XXI._

If she had had issues before, being left pregnant and alone and in jail at eighteen really did nothing to help the matter.

And then Henry came. He stole her heart twice - when she first held him (and she left him forever with a piece of her soul) and when he came to reclaim her in his life. Persistent little one, that kid is.

Once she found herself opening her heart to him, a few others managed to sneak into it too, for a good measure.

Mary Margaret, who gave her back the hope that true friendship existed.

Graham, with his adorable smiles and well-hidden clumsiness and fears.

The last man that found a little corner in her heart really has no place there. He is neither her friend, nor her romantic interest, nor her family... He is simply a selfish bastard bearing the name David Nolan who broke her best friend's heart.

Yet, perhaps because of Henry's fairytale theories, and because a part of her wishes to have what had been rightfully hers (so, _so_ badly) she can't really dislike the guy.

A really tiny, completely insignificant part of her wants to befriend him even... just a little.

_XXII._

Emma - sometimes, when she is deadly tired but can't go to sleep - gives into her son's childish ramblings and imagines what her life would have been if she was really a child of a braver Mary and David who is not a jackass too scared to openly chase after what he wants.

_XXIII._

When one day she goes to a bar in Storybrooke, she meets Archie there and they somehow wind up discussing Henry's theory. They are on their second glass of whiskey when they agree to share their dreamings of a life that never was, and it's a merry life they both imagine.

"Maybe," Archie says as they both stand up and prepare to depart, "Maybe in some alternate universe we really lead such lives. Jiminy with his Geppetto and Pinocchio, and Emma with her Snow White and Prince Charming."

"It must be a good life," he says.

"But we both are what we are and I don't regret it. I wouldn't have been the person I am now, if I was nothing but a spoiled princes... I can't stand even the thought itself. It is so unlike me. Plus, I wouldn't have had Henry."

Archie nods in agreement.

_XXIV._

James loves to travel. He loves it among many other things, such as reading, riding, star-gazing and carving little horses out of wood.

He loves feeling the morning breeze when he goes to the balcony of his private chambers (it is one of the first things he does after he wakes up). He loves the bitterness of the coffee (and hates all things sweet, especially this recently introduced thing called cocoa). He loves playing chess with his father and discussing different military strategies.

He loves going to the village nearest to the palace (always has, always will) and blend in with the common people. His best friend, Giovanni, is a playwright for one of the theaters there.

_XXV._

As said previously, James loves to travel. He is especially charmed by the city he currently is visiting for diplomatical reasons.

Agraba.

The name sends shivers down his spine.

There is a special kind of magic surrounding this place. Maybe it is the smell of exotic spices in the air. Maybe it is the mystery of the carpets he saw in the market. Maybe it is the lamp he bought as a souvenir from there, for his beloved father. Or Jasmine, the beautiful princess (too bad she is already involved).

_XXVI._

He is on his way to his kingdom, when he stops near a river for a rest and takes a more thorough inspection of the souvenir he bought.

His fingers brush at the golden surface of the object and he wonders why he isn't surprised when he sees a genie appear.

In a few sentences, the genie informs him that he would make three of his wishes come true.

"But," James replies, "I have almost everything I need and wish for. The one thing I still don't have is something I would rather fight for when I see it."

"But you have to ask me to do for you three things, otherwise I shan't be free to go back to the lamp."

"Questions," James suddenly says. "I will ask you three questions."

"Very well then," Genie replies.

"Show me the future of Prince James!"

"Look at the sky," Genie says.

James looks up somewhat hesitantly, afraid of what he might see.

He sees a girl. A girl with fair face and the darkest of curls.

She is lovely, he thinks. But somehow she did not feel right to him.

"I will marry her? For love?"

There is bitterness in the genie's smile as he says:

"Not you. Prince James will."

James frowns.

"I do not understand. Is this some kind of a jest? Tell me the truth!"

Genie sighs.

"Go to the river. For it is your lost brother whose truth is hidden in the secretive wind, and yours... yours that is carried by water."

James, who has always been keen-minded, is suddenly too afraid to go. He suddenly wishes to run back to his father and forget all about the past few minutes.

"I do not wish to see. Please, don't show me anything."

With a bored wave of Genie's hand, the sounds James hears stop.

But it is useless - he has already heard. He feels as if he has been tortured.

Genie comes closer to him. James has the need to back away, but resists this urge.

"Can I do something for you? You have asked me three things, yes, but I feel compelled to..." he trails off.

James is about to say 'no' but instead he finds himself saying:

"Show me _my_ true love."

This time, he goes to the dark waters.

And his breath is caught in his lungs, by the image that begins to form.

She is the most beautiful thing he has seen. Lovelier than the stars, than the imageries painted by his friend's words or all the places of this earth. Would he ever meet her? Or would he never have the chance to search for her? Would she be convinced that someone else is her true love? Or would she remain alone forever? No, surely, someone as beautiful as her would find someone to care for. True love is something rare after all, James thinks, but love alone is not.

"Will I ever meet her, in this life?" he voices his question. Genie opens up his mouth to answer, when James suddenly stops him. "No, come to think of it, I do not wish to know." He pats Genie on the shoulder. "Thank you, my friend."

"I'm sorry," Genie utters and as the prince looks at him in the eyes, he really sees guild there.

"I do not blame you. Plus, I know I will fight to change my future. I am my own master, no one else. Not even fate."

"Some things are written in the stars, my lord, and even you cannot rewrite them."

James ponders on those words, his head curiously cool-leveled on the matters of its own demise.

"I ask you to fulfill only one thing, then, and after that you are free to return to that lamp of yours."

"What is it, prince?"

"Make me forget that this ever happened. Make me forget all the things I've learned from you." It would be sad to forget the face of true love, but, James reasons, it is better that than a life full of doubts and existential madness.

"As you wish," Genie says and waves his hand. The spirit is gone in a second, and James looks around in a daze. He goes back to his horse and mounts it, not noticing the lamp that lay by the river.

James will later tell his father that he forgot to buy anything for him - unnatural for his character, but sometimes (rarely) he really was an airhead.

_XXVII._

_Once Upon A Time_ is not the sole book that Henry has read. He also likes _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and _Lord of The Rings_ (and has recently taken up to the _Harry Potter_ series). And even though they are purely fictional, they had made him see that _happily ever after_ is not something that everyone gets in the end.

Many have suffered irrevocably. Many have lost hope.

Henry sometimes looks around and sees countless of supposed-to-have-been's and he feels angry at his adoptive mother for taking them all away.

Yet... he knows that she has also suffered. That she was not born evil, she has been _made_ evil. It does not excuse her, but it does make him feel a heavy weight on his chest that, after lots of wondering, he realizes is called pity.

_XXVIII._

Henry looks around and sees the dazed eyes of the people in Storybrooke. He sees the discontent, the resignation.

And, as he steals Mary Margaret's credit card and prepares to go to his true mother, he vows that he would make it all alright again.

And when he makes it all alright for the rest of the world, he will make sure that Regina, the woman that has taken care for him all his life, also finds some happiness.

Because even if he was sure his adoptive mother did not love him, _he_ loved _her_.

And, as he gets on the bus that would take him to Boston, all supposed-to-have-been's in his mind, become will-be's.

REVIEWS:

**Reviews for ****His**

silverbranches7/15/12 . chapter 6

This was awesome. Good job!

DCdreamer557/15/12 . chapter 6

Very good, I like it. Nice job and well written, good. Was this the last chapter? I hope not, because I want more from you :P

silverbranches6/19/12 . chapter 4

I love this story! I think that your style of writing is really awesome, and I liked how you provide these little snippets that makes us feel so much for the characters. The MaryDavid was my favorite, and I really liked your explanation of why Regina tore out people's hearts instead of killing them.

Anyways, keep writing!

OncerSwarekJateBazeGirlscout226/16/12 . chapter 4

Aww this made me shed some tears! Beautifully written!

OncerSwarekJateBazeGirlscout226/16/12 . chapter 1

Awww this is so sad but great

jennykate756/11/12 . chapter 1

Romantic drama and angst - nice!

Never Once5/8/12 . chapter 3

Oh, Regina's story is so SAD. I'm a true Evil Regal and all of her thoughts, no matter who writes them, generally make me pity her even more than the show actually does. But drawing emotion out proves you're a good writer! :)

Never stop writing!

DCdreamer555/8/12 . chapter 3

Oh, wonderful. Beautifully written, as usual, grey job. I do really enjoy the Danial/Regina paring, they are very cute and heartbreaking. Great job :)

Ilovewrite5/4/12 . chapter 2

This is the first fanfic on this site thai I review. I like the first chapter I love MaryMargaret and David ( i cried when David left Marymargaret on te sixth episode), but I think that the second chapter is more beautiful than first, for the presence of very wonderful sentences like

"Because if you love someone truly, deeply - you wouldn't want to change them" or ""We would have been happy! We would have! If you had only just believed... We would have been great...""

Congratulation, I really like this fan. Bye (:

ps: Sorry for my imperfect english, but I'm Italian. If you have not understood something, please contact me and I'll try to explain!

DCdreamer555/4/12 . chapter 2

That was heartbreakingly beautiful. Wonderful job, just truly wonderful. I am desperately trying to hold back tears right now, I hate to cry.

Now, about the first chapter, loved it, wonderful. Snow, one of my alter-egos, I think has to be my favourite character. I love her, a well as Charming, though I find that David is kind of a jerk, and even though Josh Dallas is delicious, I don't really enjoy David. But, I do love these stories, I enjoy their complicated heartbreaking story in Storybrooke. And I must say, you did a wonderful job with it, bravo.

Next, behind Snowing, Rumpelle must be most other altimate paring, I, a hopeless romantic, find their heartbreak refreshing and enjoy think of different ways for them to get their happy ending, and even though it wasn't all together happy here, you did a wonderful job. As well as that, there were very few mistakes throughout both the chapters, terrific job.

I'm guessing you are going to continue, right? Are you going to do many different couples, or just continue with these two. Becasue even though these two are my absolute favourite, an I would love to see what you do with them, ou could do well with others as well.

Now, I try not to favourite many stories, because I have like 90 and it looks as if I just go along and favourite everything, but I don't. This is so good, I have too. I can't wait for more, update soon!

Until next time,

DCdreamer

icings4/12/12 . chapter 1

Wow.

greenfile 4/12/12

Awww...SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL. I love it . Will there be more?


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